[taylodl]

My daily driver is the "irreparable" 2012 MBP Retina. You may remember this machine as the one everybody bitched about because the RAM and SSD were soldered into the mainboard and weren't upgradeable or replaceable?

Let's see, it's 2023, hmmmm, seems the machine is coming up on 11 years. IDK about you but I think 11 years is incredible longevity for a laptop. You know, it just might be that making the machine "irreparable" has been key to its longevity.

[ant6n]

My 2013 MBP is a car wreck. Screen broke at some point had to be replaced. The second battery is now so bad it won’t even turn on anymore when plugged in. I think Bluetooth is dead too. All USB ports are dead too - although that one was “my“ fault since I plugged in a broken cd Rom drive that apparently nuked the USB ports - didn’t think that was even possible. When on, the thing often had the fans blowing at full speed… Im on like my fifth charger, they’re all frayed garbage. definitely not a fun experience at this point.

I guess if u keep a laptop stationary at your desk and plugged in at all times, then it could last 11 years. Although the very expensive 8gb of ram from back then is basically useless today.

[taylodl]

> I guess if u keep a laptop stationary at your desk and plugged in at all times, then it could last 11 years.

I've taken my MBP everywhere, criss-crossing the United States. I've connected it to many different presentation devices where I've been a speaker at conferences. I've connected to many different networks - including hard-wired ethernet. Not exactly stationary and kept on a desk. I can't even remember how many times it's been dropped while in my backpack - from table top heights. I think it has taken quite a bit of abuse.

> Although the very expensive 8gb of ram from back then is basically useless today.

Yes it is - and it has nothing to do with being soldered into the motherboard. It's too slow for today. I'm not going to take that RAM and install it on an M2 machine, for example - too slow. Honestly, on this point you're just whining.

Obviously we're swapping anecdotes, but you'll see there's a lot of people still running the 2012 MBP Retina machines. Those things were tanks! The other machine that also appears to be a tank is the 2015 MBP. Lots of people are still running those machines too. Maybe Apple has "on" years and "off" years? Wouldn't surprise me as many other manufacturers do.

[bayindirh]

> I plugged in a broken cd Rom drive that apparently nuked the USB ports

While USB has resettable fuses and whatnot to protect itself, every protection circuit has its limits. There are even tools which can nuke the whole mainboards by charging capacitors and dumping all that energy to data lines.

> I guess if u keep a laptop stationary at your desk and plugged in at all times, then it could last 11 years.

Yes. Mine has seen quite a few countries and spent considerable amount of time trying to cool itself off while I'm developing my Ph.D. and try to get every bit of performance from its processor, all while using my first Mac's power adapter.

While I take care of my computer the best I can, it's not a "house PC" in any sense.

[Oddskar]

I will take your word for it, obviously your experience is the same for all of the Macbooks of that generation which are still being used today.

[bayindirh]

I’m still using my 2008 MacBook Pro‘s MagSafe adapter via MagSafe 2 converter and never unpacked my newer (personal) MacBook Pro’s one.

It’s dirty, but not frayed and working as well as the first day.

Edit: Do you need photos? :)